


Of flying wings and soaring leap

by Vampiric_Charms



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Brief character death, Coping with war and loss, Dreams and Nightmares, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/F, Grief/Mourning, Panic Attacks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-12
Updated: 2021-02-12
Packaged: 2021-03-15 11:22:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,482
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29313282
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vampiric_Charms/pseuds/Vampiric_Charms
Summary: Force dreams are tricky things. Sometimes they bring fleeting visions of the future or images of the past, or even just muddled fears given life when no meaning is needed. Ahsoka rarely has dreams like this, and she dislikes the ones she does get. This time, though, there are complications she’s not quite ready to sort through - not until they hit her right in the face.
Relationships: Bo-Katan Kryze & Ahsoka Tano, Bo-Katan Kryze/Ahsoka Tano
Comments: 12
Kudos: 45





	Of flying wings and soaring leap

**Author's Note:**

> The title is from [this gorgeous choral piece](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yw5gupbe9E0&ab_channel=EricWhitacre-Topic) by Eric Whitacre.
> 
> Enjoy!

This was a dream, it had to be.

There were explosions, blaster fire, and the stench of death everywhere Ahsoka turned. Both lightsabers were ignited in her hands, the hilts hot from use she had no recollection of. 

Someone nearby screamed and Ahsoka spun, staring through the dust of debris lit only by blasters far off in the distance, struggling in vain to see what was going on. There was no one here, no soldiers or enemies, and yet the sounds of fighting kept echoing around her. 

She was standing in the middle of a blown-out street, high on a bridge.

She was alone. 

Another scream tore through the dusty fog, a cry for help. Ahsoka ran in the direction of the voice, and the fog deepened the further she went. But then a light, overhead - the familiar flare of a Mandalorian jetpack, tearing through the impossible dimness to leave streaks of fire behind. 

Another Mandalorian overhead, following the first. 

“They have too many cannons!”

Ahsoka didn’t recognize the woman’s voice from so far below, but there was a fresh Nite Owl insignia on her pauldrons, the paint dripping down her beskar from the intense humidity of battle. She spun in midair to watch as another explosion rocked the ground very close by. 

“Fall back to the landing bay!”

That was Bo-Katan, Ahsoka would recognize her anywhere, even before her helmet came into view through the fog to confirm what she already knew. Bo-Katan zipped past overhead, blasters drawn and arms tight to her sides as she flew. She did not see Ahsoka on the street below her. 

“Meet the rest of the landing party!” Bo-Katan commanded sharply to her comrade. “And for fuck’s sake, Aida, do not get that close to a missile again! Those things will tear your armor apart!”

And then Bo-Katan was gone, flying deeper into the messy fog. Ahsoka ran after her, though the disappearing fire of her jetpack was all she could see now. She was alone again. “Bo!” Ahsoka called uselessly. “Bo, come back! Tell me what’s happening!”

She stopped when the chase became futile. Bo-Katan was gone. Ahsoka looked around, at a loss. If this was a Force dream, she should be learning something. Instead all she felt was frustrated and confused.

The message, whatever it may have been, was indiscernible so far.

But then there was a noise, a terrible thundering sound that made Ahsoka jump. Bo-Katan was there again before her out of the mist, swooping down to deflect a large plasma cannon blast. It came from nowhere, from a cannon and shooter who both appeared from empty air. The blast was headed straight for Ahsoka, a killing blow that would most certainly land. Ahsoka held her lightsabers up, ready to defend herself as best she could. 

Before she could do more than watch silently, Bo-Katan dropped before her, taking the brunt of the blast into her own beskar-clad body to protect Ahsoka from the explosion. 

She showed no hesitation. 

The charge detonated and Bo-Katan was blown away to fall with a thud into the crater left behind. She didn’t move again. 

“Bo!” Ahsoka cried, horrified as this new scenario unfolded before her. “Gods, Bo!”

She stumbled down the cracked edges of the blast crater, her lightsabers gone and her feet far too heavy to be holding her in any normal circumstances. But this was a dream, wasn’t it, and those things did not matter. What did matter to Ahsoka in that moment was finding her friend.

Bo-Katan’s visor was cracked, her head turned limply to the side when Ahsoka finally arrived. Ahsoka fell to her knees, already reaching out to her. 

“Bo!”

Ahsoka ripped off Bo-Katan’s cracked helmet, hoping against all odds it would not be her after all, that there would be another face there underneath the visor. But there wasn’t, and Bo-Katan’s hazy eyes met hers. There was blood dripping from her hairline and a thick gush of it flowed from her nose. 

Ahsoka dropped the helmet, both hands flying to Bo-Katan’s face to cradle it as gently as she could. “Bo,” she murmured, rubbing blood off a cut on her cheek that hadn’t been there moments before. “Look at me. You’re going to be fine, okay? It’s just - it’s just a scrape.”

Bo-Katan gazed up at her from the crater in that dirty street, eyes unfocused with pain and most certainly a concussion. Ahsoka grabbed at her desperately and much more roughly than she should, given her state, pulling her limp body up to hold her close to her chest. There was so little life left in her, and Ahsoka could feel her exhaustion, the desire to let go. 

How could this - how was this the message? 

Ahsoka pressed a shaking hand to Bo-Katan’s neck, near to panicking. Her heart was failing, she could feel it in the weak thumping pulse under her blood-slick skin. This wasn’t what she wanted to see, what she wanted to receive. 

“Bo...”

“I was always going to die first,” Bo-Katan said hoarsely, eyes not seeing even as she stared through Ahsoka’s soul to her very core - the way she always could. “You’re immortal, Ahsoka, don’t you remember? I was always going to leave you like this. You can’t save me. I’m already gone.”

“No,” Ahsoka barked furiously, not knowing what to do but still unwilling to give up. “No, Bo, I can fix this. I can heal you.”

“You can’t.”

Bo-Katan coughed suddenly and a stream of darkly congealed blood sputtered from her lips. She grabbed Ahsoka’s hand from her face and dragged it downward. Ahsoka felt beskar, and dirt, and the gore of battle. She also felt the large wedge of shrapnel, speared into the tiny bare batch just above Bo-Katan’s hip where the beskar did not reach. This shrapnel, it hadn’t been there before either, just like the cut still bleeding on her face. 

It was large, too large to be real, and she knew then that Bo-Katan - _this_ Bo-Katan - was beyond her help. She was dying. Dream or not, Ahsoka was nearly crushed with the realization that couldn’t be true.

“You can’t,” Bo-Katan said again. “I have done my duty, Ahsoka, I have liberated Mandalore,” she whispered. “Have you done yours?”

And then, yes, they were on Mandalore, in the city Ahsoka had only seen a handful of times. The shining buildings rose around her, the dome above came into focus through the dust as it fell away to have never existed in the first place. She didn’t know what they were doing here, what message there was to learn from this chaos. 

“Ahsoka.”

Ahsoka looked down to Bo-Katan in her arms. Her face was pale, losing color quickly, and there was so much blood, more than Ahsoka could possibly save her from. Bo-Katan put her hand to Ahsoka’s cheek. Her touch was cold, stiff. Ahsoka grabbed her hand and held it there. 

“Be ready, Ahsoka. Be ready to let all of this go.”

Ahsoka shook her head. “No,” she said, as if it were the only word she had for this. “No, I won’t. You are not going to die like this. You’re not. Bo, listen to me!”

“You will keep living, Ahsoka. You must be ready.” Her hand went limp in Ahsoka’s grasp as she let out another pained cough. Her inhale was ragged, difficult, and then her breathing stopped completely.

“Bo!” 

Ahsoka pressed her hands to Bo-Katan’s face, seeking a warmth that was no longer there. “Bo,” she cried again. “Please, I don’t want this! Bo!”

Trembling fingers at Bo-Katan’s throat felt no pulse. Her eyes, still open and staring upward, were sightless and dull, not even reflecting the lights of her beautiful city. 

None of this made sense, it wasn’t right. 

Ahsoka screamed, the sound ripping out of her to echo around the empty battlefield that was Mandalore’s capital. This was a dream, on some level she continued to know that. But Bo-Katan’s body was heavy and lifeless in her arms, her blood stained over Ahsoka’s skin, her lekku, her clothing. 

She wanted to wake, wanted to leave this behind. She couldn’t.

“I don’t want this!” she yelled to no one. “Bring her back! Bo, please, I can’t -” Her breath hitched around the words. “Is this a prophecy?” she wailed desperately. “Have I done something to deserve this as punishment? Answer me!”

No response came, though she wasn’t really expecting one. The wind howled around her, furious, unrelenting, and calling her name from the depths of nowhere. She clutched Bo-Katan’s body tighter to her chest, afraid and angry and refusing to accept whatever message was trying to be conveyed with her death. 

“Not her, you can’t take her from me, she’s all I have left!”

Ahsoka screamed furiously again, and again, and again, feeling as though her soul was being torn asunder by the weight of everything she had just lost, dream or not.

“Ahsoka,” the wind sang. She ignored it, lowering her face to press her forehead to Bo-Katan’s. Her skin was cold now, colorless. Her life was fully gone. Even her armor felt dead under Ahsoka’s hands, as if Bo-Katan took the soul of her beskar with her. 

“Ahsoka, Ahsoka!”

The wind’s call was mocking, leering, joyous with her pain, with the knowledge of everything she would lose, all the loss she would face down this path before her.

Ahsoka couldn’t take it. She threw her head back and screamed again until her lungs felt empty, until her soul felt dead, too. 

Time meant nothing here, in this dreamspace, and it passed quickly, slowly, suns rising and falling as Ahsoka cried. 

“Ahsoka!”

“Ahsoka!”

“ _Ahsoka_!” 

Ahsoka’s eyes snapped open, the fleeting dream vanishing into wisps of reality. 

It was dark, chilly, and the familiar hum of starship engines cut through the vicious spiral of her thoughts. She blinked, baffled at how suddenly she was no longer stuck in her head, and Bo-Katan’s face swam into view through the darkness. 

Her living, _real_ face. 

Ahsoka lunged up from the bed without hesitation and wrapped her arms tightly around Bo-Katan’s neck. Bo-Katan caught her with a muffled little gasp. She was warm from sleep, the clean scent of soap clinging to her red and blood-less hair. Ahsoka pressed her face to the pulse thumping healthily under Bo-Katan’s skin and took a deep inhale, dragging it into her lungs. 

Alive. She was alive. 

It really had just been a dream. A very bad dream. 

Bo-Katan held her, obviously confused, as Ahsoka grasped almost desperately at the back of her sleep shirt, the fabric bunching into wrinkles in her aching fists. A single, halting sob tore from her lungs and she took another deep breath to prevent the wail she still felt from emerging. 

“It’s okay,” Bo-Katan murmured, so, so quietly. “You’re okay, Ahsoka.”

There was a shuffling nearby, and Ahsoka abruptly remembered she was on Bo-Katan’s ship, that they were traveling together to a common destination - uncommon in itself. She had been asleep, they’d both been, with Ahsoka curled around Bo-Katan’s back. Taking advantage of a calm evening cycle together. Which meant, too, the other Mandalorians in Bo-Katan’s small fleet were also there, onboard with them. 

Onboard and hovering in the doorway that led to the hallway. One of them had apparently overridden the lock on the door; she must have made quite a loud fuss, to make everyone so worried. Ahsoka could feel their confusion, their fear. 

Their concerned emotions buffeted against her, and she closed her eyes against them, still feeling too raw to make much sense of her surroundings.

Bo-Katan must have felt Ahsoka’s awareness coming back from the dream, and she ran a hand over the back of her head. “We have a small audience,” she explained, a not-so-subtle hint of irritation to the words. “They’re going back to bed, they'll be gone in a second.”

She felt Bo-Katan’s other hand move around her back to make a rude gesture to whoever was still in the corridor, and then there were quiet footfalls as they left. The main door hissed closed and the light from the hallway vanished. 

They were alone. 

“Sorry,” Ahsoka grumbled, face still pressed to Bo-Katan’s neck. “Sorry, I’m sorry.”

“For what?” Bo-Katan asked softly. “Having a bad dream? I can’t really fault you for that.” She leaned back and - though Ahsoka scrabbled to keep a hold on Bo-Katan’s shirt, to keep her close - Bo-Katan took Ahsoka’s face into her hands to force her gaze up. It was dark now, the only light coming from the dim emergency runner lights along the floor, but Ahsoka could see the beautiful green of Bo-Katan’s eyes and she swallowed. 

“You were screaming,” Bo-Katan told her factually. “It’s why everyone was so worried. I couldn’t wake you.” She rubbed her thumb over Ahsoka’s cheek, and Ahsoka was startled when Bo-Katan’s fingertip came away wet with tears. “You were screaming for _me_ ,” she added quietly. “What did you dream?”

Ahsoka lowered her face away from Bo-Katan’s warm, calloused hands - but Bo-Katan followed the movement, dropping her face as well to keep Ahsoka’s gaze locked to hers. She wiped away several more of the tears Ahsoka couldn’t seem to stop. 

“Ahsoka,” she murmured, “what did you see?”

Ahsoka just shook her head, grabbing the front of Bo-Katan’s shirt to drag her in again so she could hide her face against Bo-Katan’s chest. 

“I can’t,” she said unsteadily. “I can’t say it, I can’t make it real.”

Bo-Katan wrapped her arms around Ahsoka’s back and shoulders, giving up trying to see her. “It wasn’t a dream, then,” she asked, though she wasn’t really questioning. She already knew.

“It - I don’t -” 

Ahsoka cut herself off and took a deep breath, filling her lungs with the familiar scent of Bo-Katan’s skin. “I don’t know,” she finally admitted, relieved when Bo-Katan tightened her embrace. Ahsoka knew Bo-Katan didn’t necessarily understand the subtleties of Force dreams, but she certainly understood enough from Ahsoka’s stories over the years to know there was a difference between a vision and even the worst nightmare.

“Tell me,” she said, a request so gentle that Ahsoka began to cry again.

When Ahsoka wasn’t able to find her voice to reply, Bo-Katan just held her tighter, one hand cradling the back of her head while the other rubbed her back in soothing motions, up and down, up and down. Ahsoka timed her breath to the movement, in and out. Very slowly, she began to calm. 

“I’m going to take a few guesses, okay?” Bo-Katan said after a long moment of silence, though this time it wasn’t really a request. 

She was giving Ahsoka a way out, to explain without having to do so herself. Ahsoka sniffed, agreeing with the suggestion without saying so. She was overwhelmed, still.

“You were there,” Bo- Katan said first, stating the obvious.

Ahsoka nodded, closing her eyes and continuing to pace her breathing with the cyclical movement of Bo-Katan’s hand. 

“I was there, too?”

Another nod.

“Right.” Bo-Katan’s hand over Ahsoka’s back kept moving, up and down, and she leaned her head to the side so it was pressed against the bottom of Ahsoka’s montral. Her hair tickled, and Ahsoka tightened her hold on Bo-Katan’s shirt. “So you were there, and I was there. Something bad happened?”

Again, she nodded.

“Something bad to me?”

Ahsoka tried to nod again, but her breath caught in her throat and all she could do was hiccup on another sob she was barely able to hold back. That was enough of an answer, though, and Bo-Katan hummed in acceptance of this. She did not push any more, did not ask another question.

“You were protecting me,” Ahsoka finally managed to bite out. “We were - I don’t know what we were doing, it didn't make any sense. But we were on Mandalore and you - saved me. At the cost of your own life. I watched you die.”

“Oh, Ahsoka,” Bo-Katan murmured. “I’m sorry.”

Those words were so genuine that Ahsoka felt something in her heart shatter. She clutched at Bo-Katan tighter, wanting to grab her hands but also not at all willing to leave the warmth of her embrace.

“Please don’t be afraid of that fate for me,” Bo-Katan continued after a moment. “I’ve always known that was a possibility, you must know that. And to die a warrior’s death liberating my home for my people - that is not one I would run from. Death does not frighten me, Ahsoka. As a Mandalorian, it never could.”

Ahsoka did not want to hear this, and she shook her head. “Stop,” she pleaded, trembling and feeling as though her world were falling apart all over again. She thought she might be sick. 

But Bo-Katan didn’t stop, and she pressed on with words that cut through Ahsoka’s soul. 

“Does it surprise you, that I would give my life to protect yours? It shouldn’t. You are my _aliit,_ Ahsoka, my clan. You are my friend above all others.” She held Ahsoka tighter against another soft cry and murmured, “I would be honored to die for you.”

“Bo, stop!”

The bitter anger of her yell surprised them both, and Bo-Katan fell silent. Shame immediately stirred in Ahsoka’s stomach, and she sniffed. “Sorry.”

Bo-Katan just leaned back, forcing Ahsoka away from her chest so their eyes met. She cupped Ahsoka’s cheeks tenderly, sweetly, and Ahsoka couldn’t remember a time when they had ever been enemies. 

“You’ve done nothing wrong,” Bo-Katan told her fiercely.

But Ahsoka looked up at this, staring into Bo-Katan’s face as a frantic wildness overtook her thoughts. She grabbed Bo-Katan’s wrists, holding onto them tightly as her heart leapt, her lungs collapsed. 

“What if I have?” she almost wailed, lost but for Bo-Katan’s hands on her face, the hard glint in her eyes. “The Jedi Order forbade attachments - what if this is why? Maybe I’m losing myself, Bo, losing my path, because I - because I’ve attached myself to you.”

Ahsoka regretted her choice of words as soon as they left her mouth. Bo-Katan frowned, and she would have pulled her hands away from Ahsoka’s face had Ahsoka not been clinging so firmly to her wrists. Instead she just curled her fingers limply against Ahsoka’s cheeks, obviously crestfallen. 

“You have a stronger sense of yourself than anyone else I know, Ahsoka,” Bo-Katan whispered, every word deliberate, powerful. “You are a pure soul, you _are_. Nothing will ever change that about you, do you understand?”

Ahsoka’s eyes watered, and Bo-Katan wiggled one wrist free from Ahsoka’s iron grip to run the backs of her fingers over her cheek, the side of her nose, wiping the tears away. 

“Listen to me,” Bo-Katan murmured intensely. “You’ve already proven that you can put the needs of others over someone you care about, and if that’s not a virtuous Jedi attribute I don’t know what is. But -” she cut herself off, casting her eyes downward and withdrawing her hands completely from Ahsoka’s face. 

Ahsoka felt bereft without her touch, and she was thrown unmoored as the waves of Bo-Katan’s unusually unsteady emotions hit her. 

Bo-Katan took a sharp breath and blinked, not meeting Ahsoka’s anxious gaze again as she stared down at the wrinkled sheets on the bed, which did nothing to soothe the storm of Ahsoka’s panic. 

“I understand if you need to leave this - us - whatever we have.” Bo-Katan made a weak gesture to the space between them. “I won’t be the reason you doubt yourself, Ahsoka. You’re too good for me to do that to you.”

Hearing the words aloud made Ahsoka’s blood run cold, made her heart stutter in her chest. _This_ \- this is something she risked losing, with her doubt and her fear. She rocked forward onto her knees and grasped Bo-Katan’s shoulders, slid her hands up over her neck to rest under her ears. 

“No, Bo, no, I don’t want that!”

“Ahsoka -”

“No,” Ahsoka said vehemently, interrupting her before she could say it again. “No, absolutely not. I love you,” she whispered passionately, only realizing after she’d said it that those words had never been given life between them. She leaned forward on her knees, gazing down at Bo-Katan from the slight height advantage that gave her. 

Bo-Katan stared up at her, eyes wide. She didn’t move even as Ahsoka hovered over her, too stunned by the many turns their conversation had taken, and Ahsoka moved her hands upward to cup her cheeks, slid them back into her hair. 

“I love you,” Ahsoka repeated softly, making sure Bo-Katan heard her, that she understood everything Ahsoka had ever wanted to say. “I love you. I refuse to let you go, Bo, I won’t. Don’t ever suggest such a thing again, _never._ ”

“Okay,” Bo-Katan whispered, covering Ahsoka’s hands with her own, threading their fingers together.

“You are not my ruin, Bo,” Ahsoka said, knowing this for truth even after all she had feared to the contrary since the dream started so long ago now. “You are my reason - my reason for everything, since I found you again.” 

There were other messages to parse, more to understand from the terror the dream had left behind, all of them important. Ahsoka knew that. But this...this choice, the decision to stay, was all she cared to focus on just then. 

Bo-Katan smiled at her and very slowly pulled Ahsoka’s desperate hands away from her face, only to enclose them in her own. “I do believe,” she murmured slyly, “that I was the one who reached out to _you_ , in order for you to find me at all.”

Ahsoka couldn’t help the surprised little laugh that bubbled up from her throat. “Only if you want to be technical about it, I guess.”

“Here, come on.” Bo-Katan released her hands and shifted on the bed, making to lie down again.

Ahsoka followed her immediately, rolling into Bo-Katan’s side and burrowing her face into her warm chest to hide from the rest of it all. Bo-Katan hadn’t replied to Ahsoka’s passionate outburst and outpouring of emotion, but the way her arms pulled Ahsoka close held all the answer she really needed. She bit her lip, wanting to cry again. From relief, this time, though the burn in her throat was just the same. 

Bo-Katan’s heart beat strongly under Ahsoka’s cheek and she squeezed her eyes closed. The arms around her were heavy, powerful, and her anxieties finally began to loosen.

“My master,” Ahsoka murmured after a moment. “Anakin. Do you remember him?”

She received a soft hum in the affirmative, and Ahsoka swallowed, trying to sort through her words and thoughts even as they came spilling forth. 

“I learned after - after the Order fell,” she continued softly, “that he was romantically involved with Senator Amidala. They’d gotten married in secret and she - she died of heartbreak when he -” She cut herself off, the memories painful to relive. “It’s part of what drove the darkness inside him, his attachment and love for her. For all of us, really. It consumed him until he...became what he is now.”

“Ahsoka,” Bo-Katan chided, scoffing as she saw where Ahsoka’s mind was headed. “You can’t seriously be afraid of becoming some _dar'jetii_ after all this time. Fuck’s sake. It’s been decades. If it was going to happen, it would have happened already.”

That pulled a relieved little laugh out of her, and Ahsoka turned her face against Bo-Katan’s bony sternum. She was right about that, she had to be.

“Besides,” Bo-Katan continued after a soft moment, “You told me yourself years ago, your soul was merged with a being of Light. His fate could never be yours. You’re too pure.”

Mention of the Daughter made Ahsoka’s eyes fly open again. A different kind of panic than she had felt earlier gripped her chest when she suddenly remembered Bo-Katan’s words from her dream. 

_“You’re immortal,”_ she had said. 

What if -

But no. Ahsoka refused to think about that. Not yet. Not here.

“Ahsoka?”

Bo-Katan’s concerned voice pulled her out of her spiral and Ahsoka shifted a little, tossing her top leg over Bo-Katan’s hips to keep them close before she could get lost in her thoughts. Bo-Katan understood her too well sometimes, even when Ahsoka didn’t say a word. It was comforting, to be known by someone like that. 

“I’m okay,” she whispered. “Just...remembered something.”

Bo-Katan made a discontented noise in her throat but she didn’t push for more of an answer. 

And she knew Bo-Katan was right. Anakin had been so strong, so kind, and Ahsoka missed him desperately even after learning of what he’d become. But they were different, too, and the fear Ahsoka felt when she woke was finally starting to diminish. 

She would meditate in the morning, when her mind was fresh, to sort through everything she had seen. 

For now, this was enough. She was no longer so afraid. 

Perhaps it was, after all, simply a nightmare.

“I care about you, too,” Bo-Katan said softly, the breath of her words brushing over Ahsoka’s montrals and bringing her attention back to the present. “Never doubt that. I would die for you over and over if it kept you safe.”

“Don’t say such a thing,” Ahsoka rebuffed weakly, though it didn’t strike through her heart the way it had only minutes before. Instead, this time, she heard the fierce devotion behind Bo-Katan’s sentiment, and she turned her head just enough to look up over Bo-Katan’s chest, up her neck, and to her face. 

Bo-Katan felt her movement, her gaze, and met Ahsoka’s eyes. Her expression was calm, reserved, and Ahsoka was overwhelmed just seeing her so near. She reached up and touched Bo-Katan’s freckled cheek, giving her a small smile as she did. 

“Feeling better?” Bo-Katan asked.

Ahsoka ran her fingertips over Bo-Katan’s forehead, down her nose to trace her lips. “Yes,” she murmured. “I think so.”

“Good.”

They lapsed into silence. Ahsoka soaked up the sound of Bo-Katan’s heartbeat, the gentle motions of her hand smoothing across Ahsoka’s shoulder. After several minutes like this, with Ahsoka curled against Bo-Katan’s chest, she rolled away to face the wall and let Bo-Katan breathe easier without her limp weight crushing down on her. 

Bo-Katan followed her without comment, spooning against Ahsoka’s back and wrapping an arm over her waist to tug her close again. Her breath was warm, humid against Ahsoka’s lek and Ahsoka finally closed her eyes to sleep again.

It was as she was dozing off, unafraid of whatever dreams awaited her this time, she felt Bo-Katan whisper something into her neck. 

Just a murmur, three words Ahsoka may not have heard at all. 

“Love you, too.”

She may as well have returned every declaration Ahsoka had overflowed with before, with those soft few syllables - and really she had.

That was all Ahsoka needed. 

Her fears were gone.


End file.
